What’s the worst customer service you’ve ever received?

[SuperMeerkat]

This is actually laughable as it was so bad. Today I was in NatWest as my husband is doing a Masters through his work and wanted to change his account to a student account. Anyway, we were told a 10 minute wait and after 40 we were still waiting. I enquires why this was and was told ‘they were busy’. I asked why the man couldn’t have kept us (and all the other customers) informed of the waiting time and he then put his hand up to my face, walked off and started talking to someone else. I said I hadn’t finished my query and he said ‘he didn’t have time to update people on waiting times’ despite sitting 6 feet away from everyone. Anyhow, he then yelled at me and my husband that we weren’t welcome at the branch and he was going to shut our account 😂😂 Crazy.

Russell and Bromley! My mum brought me a £275 pair of sandals. Within 2 weeks they fell apart. Went into the store. They said I’d worn them in the rain and it was my fault. I hadn’t barely worn them. Let alone in the rain! Plus we live in England. It rains. But I’d only had them 2 weeks. Manger came over. I’m in tears. Like hysterical (I hate people saying I’m lying when I’m not) he says. Nope. Not doing anything. Tough. We lef the store and literally phoned head office. No more than 5 mins could of past. The manager had already rung! And the guy agreed with him. He said you wore them in the rain. I said do you wear leather shoes from Russell and Bromley. He said of course. I said what would you do if you were out and it started raining? He said I’d take a spare pair where where I go in a bag so I could change out of them!! I was like. Yeah right. I said but it’s July. We haven’t had any rain?!? It was during a heat wave.

They steadfast refused to change them. £275 down. No shoes. I’ve got a picture on my Twitter. I can show you them. The leather has come apart from the sides. The bottom had fallen off. It was horrific.

I brought a pair off eBay (as I did love them). Within 3 weeks the same thing happened! Brought one more pair (as I said. I loved them). Same thing happened!!!! For the third time. So I knew it wasn’t me. I took them to a cobbler to see if he could fix them. He said he’d never seen such badly made shoes. Weren’t fit for use at all

I tweeted Russell and Bromley. They asked me to get in contact. I did. They said their manager said I’d never even been in the shop and they had no trail that I’d ever brought any shoes from them!!!!!!! Furious. I said we brought 3 pairs. I’ve been a customer of yours since forever. We tried to reclaim on the bank. They blocked that.

I tried everything. Nothing worked. I would never ever buy shoes from them

Friend brought two pairs of boots last year from them. Both fell apart within a month. They did the exact same to her. Word for word. You’ve worn them in the rain etc. Unfortunately she spent £600.

I would never go near there now. And I beg of you to do either. Companies tend to do this

Mothercare. Sold me a cybex car seat. It fell apart just over 2 years since I brought it. I rang cybex. They said. Don’t worry. We’ve got w contract with mothercare that if it breaks before 3 years are up. We take the cost and you get your car seat. From 2 years ago. We couldn’t find the receipt. He said no worries. I’ll ring Southampton mothercare for you. He rang them. Spoke to 3 managers. Said lady will be coming in. We will take the cost. Please give her a new car seat. Great. Thank you

Went in the next day. She took the bottom off. But it still had the fault (the car seat was in 2 pieces!!!!). She said ‘don’t worry if it’s broken. You’re only using it for a few days!’ I said. How long does it take to kill a child in a car accident?!? She said but it’s fixed. I said you’ve clipped it back together. I put it back into 2 pieces. I said the impact force would rip that apart in a crash. I can do it with my hands. She said. Oh well. You’ll be fine. I was horrified that she was telling me my car seat which was shattered was safe to use!!!! I went nuts. I said cybex themselves (which are a huge multi billion pound business) have rung you and asked all of you to help me replace it. She said well they didn’t speak to me personally’. I was aghast. Not only was she telling me to put my child in a death trap of a seat. And that it was perfectly fine to use. Any normal human can see it’s not. She was refusing to replace it. I rang cybex. They sorted it out for me. But it was a hard one. They argued massively.

Because of what happened to me. Cybex have reviewed their policies and are now going to take their contract off them. He said. Whatever you do. Don’t buy a car seat through them. When I explained what had happened. They also said they couldn’t believe mothercare had told me that I could use the car seat. Cybex even said they would personally have one sent out to me. But the problem was. I needed the seat for a school run twice a day. Mothercare hated me. I won’t ever go there again

Both companies I believe are going down. When they start to refuse refunds etc. To THAT extent. It’s usually because they are in trouble.

Scottish Gas/British Gas. Still makes me nash my teeth over a decade on. They somehow couldn't figure out that different flats in a block may have different numbers and meters and bills. Ridiculous saga. Most insanely stupid bunch of people ever.

Arnold Clark are utter rip off merchants, and don't give a toss, will never go near them again.

@Florabritannica that's unbelievable - breakdown services are supposed to tell the police if you break down and are a line woman I think - I've certainly had the police come and check on me when I've broken down alone.

My examples - Ikea who just didn't turn up with a bed and other furniture we'd bought and arranged delivery of, the customer service phone line queue was about an hour long and (this is pre-mobile phones) we'd just moved into a house, no phone line yet, I spent about a tenner in a phone box trying to get through to a really rude and dismissive call centre operative. No idea where 100s of pounds of furniture we'd bought had gone and we had to sleep on the floor. I have to say their customer service has drastically improved since then and I actually really rate them now.

Mothercare - we ordered a nursery furniture set, when delivered the cot was missing various bits and was obviously ex-display (scratched and dirty). It took weeks, many tearful phonecalls with really rude staff who failed to see any issue, and several deliveries of cots which also had bits missing. I was in hospital having given birth when they finally delivered a cot that had all the requisite pieces. I am so unsurprised that they have gone bust - they have had a really bad attitude towards their customers for years.

Ah yes, Currys. I had blocked that traumatic experience.

Spent £800 on a PC. It failed spectacularly within days. I'm quite good with computers and knew what was wrong. Their so called experts said it wasn't that at all, and the PC had to go and be fixed. Got it back, same thing. Then there was a month of arguing and being blamed for the issue and patronised by morons. Endless phone calls to a useless customer service.

Eventually we went back in again and found there was a different manager on duty who swapped the PC without much argument.

Some years later I started getting marketing emails from them and unsubscribe as I tried they kept sending me more emails. I believe they were fined for that in the end!
I swore I'd never use them again, but ended up buying laptop there, and the hard drive failed after about 7 months. They refused to help unless I paid for a diagnosis and repair. From what I was told, they would only accept it was faulty if it had't been used (?!?!?) and buy using it I was no longer entitled to an immediate replacement. It was cheaper to just buy a new hard drive and replace it myself.
No, I will never spend my money in there again.

Toss up between the downright rude and spiteful receptionist at my former doctors surgery and her self invented the repeat prescription policy

Or First Great Western trains and their assisted travel service.

isabellerossigno - that is bat shit crazy. Have you worked out your 'proper' birthdate yet|??!!

My HMRC assigned birthdate remains a mystery but I did get it sorted out with a combination of letter writing and 'please may I speak to your manager' over a series of phonecalls.

Worst thing about HMRC is they have no incentive to provide better service because its not as if I could stomp off and say 'that's it, from now on I'm paying my income tax to the French government instead, the UK government is useless'.

I don't actually blame the staff, I expect they're working in conditions where they have no autonomy and aren't allowed to use common sense. And imagine working on a phoneline where everyone has been on hold for so long that they are furious before they even get to speak to you. Can't be much fun.

Agree Russell and Bromley and John Lewis, absolutely appalling customer service.

Wickes

Had a new kitchen and bathroom installed by them last year. It went horribly. They only sent 1 fitter rather than 2 as promise and the project was plagued with problems that they caused from start to finish. We were told it would be completed in 2 weeks but it took 4 months in the end. All the while I kept phoning customer services and trying to get them to fix it but they kept saying 'Pay the final bill and then you can put in a complaint. We won't accept any complaints otherwise. Then we'll investigate, see if we need to make any repairs and then compensate you if we deem it necessary.' They were like soul less robots on the end of the phone. I'm guessing they heard complaints like mine a lot.

I refused to pay a penny until they'd done what they'd promised, completed the project and rectified all the damage done to my house. So we were at a stale mate.

In the end I had to take my list of problems down to the local store that we'd booked the work through and sit and cry to the show room manager, in full view of prospective customers, to be taken seriously. Unsurprisingly everyone who was waiting behind me to talk about ordering a new kitchen or bathroom left pretty quickly once they saw me begging them to help in floods of tears. And kudos to the guys in store because they did get it sorted, even though they didn't cause it.

@isabellerossignol

That made me lols! Hmrc doesn’t know their arse from their elbow. I spent nearly a year trying to sort out a £400 bill they’d charged me. For earning £1000 in the tax year. Yep. Not even taxable. One woman promised me It wouldn’t go up. 3 weeks later it doubled. I told them to replay the call. They wrote me a letter saying she never said the debt wouldn’t be cancelled. That wasn’t even what I was asking. So ensued more phone calls. More people. Was shit.

NPower. As a single mum I'd run into difficulties with my electricity bill so they fitted a pre-pay meter, set up to take credit and pay off my outstanding debt.

After two years a man turns up to fit a new meter. I was a bit taken aback but let him crack on. Afterwards I asked him why he was fitting a new meter as the old one was fine, and it turned out that they hadn't set the old meter to collect the debt that I thought was nearly paid off. They hadn't said a word to me about it, just thought they'd furtively change the meter I'd been thinking I was about to do away with as I assumed the debt was paid off!

When I rang, the woman at the other end had the cheek to say 'didn't you think your electricity was cheap considering we were supposed to be collecting your debt?' Well no, I bloody didn't!

BT. Quite honestly on the most stressful few weeks of my life dealing with them, still get heart palpitations when I see their adverts

Two examples for me. First was tv licensing, told them six months in advance I'd be moving and asked what I should do with my DD since the one I had in place would have meant overpaying. Was assured to keep it in place and once I had the exact moving date they'd refund my six months over payment. Came to moving time, informed them and was told they would only refund 3 months of my overpayment. Sent a firm but polite complaint letter and received the most patronising response back effectively saying they had no legal obligation to refund me so be grateful as a gesture of goodwill they gave me 3 months.

Second was our local Sainsbury's. Joined a till queue where the cashier was serving the people in front. Put my stuff on the belt and the cashier finished with the people in front and slapped the "till closed" sign down in front of my stuff and sauntered off to chat to the cashier manning the self serve tills. I called over "are you not going to acknowledge or serve me?" And she gave me the shittiest look and said "the till's closed" like I was thick and didn't understand the sign. Twat.

I have several. N power supplied a house I lived in for 10 days. I informed them when I moved out (left my husband after years of abuse) but they kept trying to bill me as he hadn't called them up to take over the account. Of course he wouldn't because he was financially abusive and it was funny for him to know I was getting debt collectors letters.

BT at my new house. I changed providers then a few months later I got a final bill in for several hundred pounds with no explanation. I called asking what the charges are for but no one could tell me. One person said call charges dating after I left them, another said it was an early cancellation charge, others couldn't even attempt to tell me what it was for. More and more letters and more and more calls. I ended up writing to the MD and his secretary called me after even she couldn't ascertain where the charges stemmed from and finally cleared it up.

Sky when I switched to them from BT they started charging me for phone calls at my old number over 600 miles away. For 6 months. Every month I explained that it wasn't my phone number and I'm not liable and it's not possible to provide 2 phone lines to one single property that spans the length of the country. Every month I rang and every month I was told I had to pay the bill then they would credit it back the on the next bill. Every month I refused and finally after telling them I was cancelling due to their breach of data protection by providing me itemised bills of other people's phone calls and breach of contract they finally sorted it out.

And right now we have moved again and we let a house which was not habitable and dangerous. We kept being told we signed the contract so they don't have any legal obligation to fix anything as we accepted it in the current state. Well we couldn't see holes in the walls, falling plasterboard or legionella in the water system during the half hour we got to view before signing the paperwork. They have also told us we are in arrears even though we pay each and every week and are not in arrears nor have we ever been. Complaint is now with our MP and the public services ombudsman.

Bought a pair of shoes from an independant shoe shop. A week later the sole fell off. When I returned them the manager told me the sole was a "cosmetic part" of the shoe and I therefore wasn't entitled to a refund or an exchange! Years ago DH and I booked a last minute package holiday to the canaries, accomodation allocated on arrival. When we arrived we were in the middle of a barren wasteland literally just our hotel and nought else. Dutifully went to the Rep intro the next morning he said " I know what you are all thinking but you re only here for a week or two, I have to stay here the whole season". We were gobsmacked!!

BT. The only company I have ever dealt with that got shitty with me for wanting to GIVE them money.

And (showing my age here) Boxclever. I kept the letter I sent to them. It was a source of immense pride for me.

Mothercare. Paid £35 for nothing, they still owe me it. Won’t see that now.

I once phoned Vodafone, to ask about why I was being charged when I cancelled my contract the conversation literally went
Me-“Hi I’m just ringing because I have cancelled my contract and I’m still being charged can you have a look why?”
Vodafone worker- “oh fuck off” and hung up.. I then had to wait on hold again and made out to the next person I was really hurt by being sworn at on the phone.. in the end I got a voucher and all the money refunded

Ocado.
9 hours late. Did not care.
Ocado.
Driver phoned to say it was the end of his shift so he wouldn’t be delivering.
Nursery - small chain in Stanmore.
Lied for three weeks about sending the learning journey book. Utter blatant bonkers lies - pretending to phone from the post office etc.
Sports Direct.
Awful returns policy.
BT.
After literally hours of discussions, “I can’t phone you back we are an incoming call centre only and you can’t ask to speak to me”

All about people not doing their job properly isn’t it.

Stansted parking. I prepaid £50 for our holiday parking. Just drive up to the gate, if says. It will be quick and easy it said. It didn’t recognise my numberplate on entry (it isn’t obscured or marked or perished or a strange font or anything except normal) so I took a ticket as we were in a rush. At the end of the holiday it again didn’t recognise my numberplate so I put in the ticket and it said £236. Obvs I wasn’t paying that, I’d already prepaid.

I pressed the help/speak to an attendant button. And waited. Pressed. Waited. 15 minutes. No one came. Began to panic and walked to another pay station and pressed their help button. Still nothing. 30 mins and we are really beginning to panic. It was 11 at night, pitch black and completely deserted, the kids were screaming and I starting wondering if we’d have to sleep in the car or walk down the motorway back to the airport. No answer on any phone numbers for stansted parking.

Managed to flag down a passing car, and it just happened to be a staff member. She said walk to the very front of the gates (about 1/5 of a mile away and you can’t drive, it’s on the other side of the barriers) and there’ll be a camera. I went and must have looked like that woman off The Blair Witch Project when the camera came on. Explained that I’d already paid here’s my prepay reference number, here’s a picture of my confirmation, just please let us out, the kids are terrified and so am I!

She did reluctantly let us out, no explanation for why it’s impossible to speak to an attendant in a 24hr manned car park, and I sent them a stinking letter because my son developed anxiety over car parks after that. I was in bits driving home after that.

In fact if you were robbed or assaulted in that car park and needed assistance, it would be a very dire situation indeed. Stansted mid stay.

PayPal I had bought an office chair for £60 which was totally different from how it was described, on the item it was dispatched from the UK.

The return address for the chair was listed as Hong Kong, I looked up the postage rates and it would have cost more than £60 to return and it was the only way to get a refund.

The service also took around 2 months since I had paid on Paypal credit which is a different dept.

Eventually I threatened trading standards and got a goodwill refund.

Scottish Power, they have messed me around with billing for years. They take X per month but put too much towards electric and not enough to gas meaning I would build a large credit to electricity but a huge bill on my gas account. Trying to get the balance transferred between accounts has been a nightmare leading to threats about my gas account being in arrears.

I changed company and stopped my DD, they keep billing me and even managed to take another direct debit as the same time as sending me a monthly invoice to pay at the post office.

Not sure it's the worse but Calvin Klein was memorable. I asked for D cup bras and was told, "Calvin Klein aren't really designed for people like you". I was 29 and a size 10 at the time so fuck knows what they would make of me 20 years later

Family celebration at an Indian restaurant.
It was a weekend and they were busy, with people waiting to be seated.
We hadn't finished, but as soon as the mains were cleared we started getting hassled to hurry up.
Eventually my Father asked the waiter "Do you think we'll ever come here again?" to which the waiter replied "I don't care"

Expedia - charged twice for multiple flight bookings. It cleared my account and so couldn’t afford to book the rest of the trip. Took an age for them to admit it was a ‘system glitch’ and then another couple of months to refund.

Hermes - delivery man saw my H leave in the car, looked through the living room window, opened the front door and walked into my house, shutting the door behind him. I was across the road watching with a neighbour. I followed him in, he jumped out of his skin and said he wanted to leave the parcel somewhere safe then left.

Hermes - driver spat on my door, caught on the door bell camera. Sent footage off to add to my other complaint (as above) and they responded with ‘doesn’t look like any of our drivers and he said it wasn’t him’

Hermes are my favourite failure.. ordered a corner sofa and an American fridge freezer from very.. dispatched, arrived at 3 depots fine, courier who was meant to deliver them couldn’t find them.... they’d ran away in cahoots from my local depot. I asked were they damaged and lost was just default statement? Nope (would’ve taken a functional scratched fridge as I had none). Some how they’d lost two giant pieces of furniture in a rather small (friends ex worked there) warehouse within 24 hours.

Took 5 weeks to be refunded too.

Had other shitty experiences but I genuinely couldn’t believe they’d lost multiple very large items, isn’t like a lost iPad that fell in someone’s bag.